All participants will receive interviews to assess how they are doing in general, including general mood, degree of nervousness and behavior. Each participant and one of his or her parents will be interviewed separately and together. Those electing the medication study will also receive a physical examination. Participants are asked to complete tasks involving problem-solving and memory that involve looking at pictures, remembering things, testing reaction times, and making simple choices.

Participants with anxiety or depression will first meet with a psychiatrist or psychologist for two weekly sessions of talk therapy.

Those who remain anxious or depressed after these 2 weeks will have the 3 options based on their choice: 1) treatment with fluoxetine daily for 8 weeks 2) cognitive-behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy (two kinds of talk therapy) once a week for 8 weeks 3) a random assignment (50% chance) to either placebo or fluoxetine for 8 weeks. In addition, subjects also will be randomly and blindly assigned to receive either an active computer-based training task or an inactive computer-based training task, administered as part of the other,along with their medication or talk -therapy treatment. The active training is thought to help anxiety whereas the inactive training is thought to have no effect. The purpose of this part of the study is to understand the best way to help children and adolescents who are having problems with anxiety. However, more research is needed to find the best way to help such children and adolescents. During and after the 8 weeks of treatment, each participant will complete verbal and written symptom ratings. Blood samples will be drawn for laboratory tests before drug treatment and after it ends.

Those who have not improved by the end of the study will be offered other treatment for 1 to 3 months, and the clinicians will help with finding subsequent aftercare. Those who improve with treatment will continue therapy at NIH until an outside physician is able to assume responsibility for monitoring medication.

FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING THIS STUDY CALL THE CORE PHONE NUMBER: 301-496-5645

Objective: This protocol uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neuro-cognitive correlates of pediatric and adult mood and anxiety disorders. The primary goal of the project is to document, in pediatric anxiety disorders and major depression, perturbations in brain systems mediating attention biases, fear conditioning, emotional memory, and response to various forms of motivational stimuli. As one secondary goal, the project measures the relationship between these factors and treatment response to either fluoxetine, a specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). Another secondary goal examines similar associations in adults.

Study Population: A total of 2330 children, adolescents, and adults will be recruited. The majority of these can only be partially studied. We seek to comprehensively study 150 juveniles with only a current anxiety disorder, 60 juveniles with current major depression, 150 juveniles with no psychiatric disorder, 100 adults with major depression, 60 adults with an anxiety disorder, and 150 adults with no psychiatric disorder. To achieve this, we are recruiting 2330 individuals.

Design: Subjects will be tested using fMRI paradigms designed to examine brain regions engaged when processing motivationally salient stimuli, as assessed during attention, memory, social interaction, reward, and fear-conditioning paradigms. After these initial fMRI tests, subjects with depression or an anxiety disorder receive treatment. Treatment will comprise open treatment with either fluoxetine or CBT, augmented with computer-based attention retraining, delivered in a randomized-controlled design, with random assignment to either active or placebo attention-training regimens. Adolescent subjects then will be re-tested after eight-weeks using only the attention, memory, and conditioning paradigms.

Outcome Measures: Prior imaging studies note that tasks requiring attention modulation, emotional memory, social interchange, and fear conditioning engage brain regions previously implicated in adult mood and anxiety disorders. These regions include most consistently the amygdala and ventral prefrontal cortex. Moreover, imaging studies of reward function implicate the striatum and prefrontal cortex in adult mood disorders. As a result, we hypothesize that attention, memory, social interaction, reward, and conditioning paradigms will engage the amygdala, ventral prefrontal cortex and striatum in both psychiatrically healthy and impaired subjects. Moreover, we hypothesize that these healthy and psychiatrically impaired groups will differ in the degree of engagement.

Juvenile subjects also will be treated for eight-weeks, and a subset will be re-tested with fMRI. We predict that pre-treatment abnormalities in neural circuitry will predict response to treatment, such that increased amygdala and prefrontal activation will occur in individuals who show the strongest response to treatment. Moreover, we hypothesize that effective treatment will normalize abnormalities in attention and emotional memory, as manifest in fMRI.

IQ: all subjects will have IQ greater than 70 (Assessment relies on WASI)

Languge: all subjects will speak English

SUBJECTS WITH AN ANXIETY DISORDER:

Diagnosis: Current Diagnosis of Social Phobia, Separation Anxiety, or Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Based on K-SADS)

Symptom Severity: Score greater than 9 on PARS (This score was used to enroll subjects in previous trial demonstrating efficacy of an SSRI in pediatric anxiety)

Clinical Impairment: CGAS less than 60

SUBJECTS WITH A MOOD DISORDER:

Diagnosis: Current Diagnosis of Major Depression (Based on K-SADS (juveniles) or SCID (adults))

Clinical Impairment: CGAS less than 60 (juveniles) GAS less than 70 (adults)

Symptom Severity: CDRS Score greater than 39 (juveniles) (This score was used to enroll subjects in previous trials demonstrating efficacy of an SSRI in pediatric depression)

ADULT SUBJECTS:

Age: 20-40

Consent: can give consent/assent

IQ: all subjects will have IQ greater than 70.

Languge: all subjects will speak English (Assessment relies on WASI)

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

ALL SUBJECTS:

Any serious medical condition or condition that interferes with fMRI scanning, and for patients electing medication, any condition that increases risk of SSRI treatment. All patients will have complete physical examination. Healthy volunteer participants will be medication-free and have no current serious medical conditions, based on a review of their medical history.

Pregnancy

Current use of any psychoactive substance; current suicidal ideation; current diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) of sufficient severity to require pharmacotherapy. These factors could complicate treatment with an SSRI. No subject on medication will be accepted into the trial. Subjects will not be taken off of medications to enter the trial.

Past or current history of mania, psychosis, or pervasive developmental disorder. These factors may be effected by SSRI treatment, influencing ability to detect effects on anxiety/depression

Recent use of an SSRI; all subjects must have been free of any SSRI-use for at least one month (fluoxetine six months) and must not have been treated with an SSRI for their current depressive episode. This is designed to exclude subjects who have failed a trial of an SSRI for their current episode of major depression.

HEALTHY ADULT SUBJECTS:

Any current psychiatric diagnosis. Assessment relies on SCID.

SUBJECTS WITH AN ANXIETY DISORDER:

Current Major Depressive Disorder.

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00018057